Going through something as significant as a personal injury as a result of someone else’s negligence has a major impact on your usual routine. There is every chance that your life has changed as you know it, and not in a positive way. Facing the universe with a new injury always comes with a unique set of challenges to work through, but it’s important to know you’re not alone. Our team will assist with the personal injury case and aims to answer whether it will cover your lost wages in the guide below.
Lost Wages Defined in More Detail
To first answer the question of whether a personal injury suit will cover lost wages, it is useful to understand what is meant, exactly, by the term. Lost wages are any financial hit you take as a result of taking unsolicited time off from work. This means your salary will not be paid, and you will be in monetary hardship as a direct consequence. Everyone has a different income, and yours might be salaried or paid by the hour depending on what your contract states.
When Will Lost Wages Be Taken into Account During a Personal Injury Case?
Our personal injury firm advises that lost wages are always a relevant topic. If your personal injury has led to unexpected time away from the office or shop floor, or whichever profession you usually attend, then this financial hardship is relevant and should be noted when figuring out what you are owed in terms of compensation. So, what will our team of top personal injury attorneys take a look at to decide how to proceed?
Past Income
Past income includes anything you usually received in your bank account before the accident and time off took place. This covers earnings prior to the accident and is used to project the exact amount of hardship in your current circumstances. You can prove this through information stored in your bank statements, salary slips, and tax returns too. This must correlate with your employment record information as well in order to be fully verified and valid.
What About Self-Employed People?
Self-employment is slightly different as you do not receive a salary in the traditional sense. What you do get are tax records, and profit statements from your business which can all be submitted as evidence.
How Will Your Claim Be Determined?
In order to conclude the proceedings and finalize a compensation amount regarding lost wages, there needs to be a comprehensive look at all the information on the table. This is another area where accident injury lawyers have expertise to offer. We have already shown how past income plays a big part in terms of where your compensation will land, but there are other factors that also influence the end amount on offer.
How Long You Have Been Injured
The number of days that you have spent away from work will be a big determining factor. This means how much time off you have taken after the accident took place, and whether this is a long time or a short time. So, for example, if you are forced to take months and months away from your usual professional role then you will naturally receive a higher settlement amount because the number of wages that you are missing will be, you guessed it, of more value!
Financial History
This point is more of a detail to note than anything else, but it is still relevant in most cases. Your financial earning history will be taken into account and they will dive in deep. This means that if you have recently been promoted, and are therefore in receipt of a pay rise, then you may be looking at a lower settlement amount as it may be based on what you were earning before the promotion kicked into action.
The Benefit Factor
If you were earning some wages but they were supplemented by a benefit payment, this will also play a part when it comes to how much you can realistically claim. You can’t ask for compensation for benefit payments, so this will be something to sit down and talk about with your personal injury accident lawyer.
Will You Receive Enough from Compensation Payments?
This question takes a lot of information into account before being able to be answered in full. Your attorney will look at economic and non-economic damages, alongside punitive damages as well in order to come up with a final amount. Let’s explore these topics a bit more below.
Economic Factors
The economic factors are where your missing income will be factored in. This section will uncover everything that has impacted you financially since the accident happened. There will be a real discussion about how much time you have had away from your workspace and the amount of money you have lost in the fallout. This is the best time to present evidence in this light and put your case forward.
Non-Economic Factors
Non-economic factors include things like personal pain and suffering and are something that is hard to link up to lost wages. One argument could be that you have suffered as a result of being forced to step back from the workplace as a result of the accident which caused the personal injury in the first place. So, in this sense, there is a link to be found. However, it will be a payment based on your pain and suffering and not the wages that you have lost so there is no path through here.
Punitive Damages
This type of damage rarely factors in lost wages. It focuses more on holding the offending party responsible for their negligence or crime and is an entirely justice-based approach. So, it is not really relevant to your circumstances.
Personal injury settlements cover a lot of things and lost wages are one of those factors. If you have missed time from work and are struggling financially because of it, then we are here to help you get the compensation that you rightly deserve.
Let the attorneys at What’s My Case Worth fight for you today.
